Mental Fitness Challenge: 90 days to change

I’ve read hundreds of examples recently where people have taken a 90 day challenge to improve their fitness and I love it! What better way to get physically fit than to associate with a community of like-minded people? However, with all the focus on a physical challenge, aren’t people missing out on two other key aspects of fitness: the mental and spiritual aspects?

If people are going to challenge themselves anyway, why not launch a 90-day Total Mental Fitness Challenge? Work in the three areas of life improving the physical, mental and spiritual aspects. For example, just as flaccid muscles must be exercised to tone and strengthen them, so does flaccid thinking. In fact, if anything, limp thinking can have more disastrous effects on a person’s life than limp muscles. So if a person is investing energy for 90 days anyway, let it be a total transformation, not just a physical one.

A person’s mental life changes when they begin to feed on a steady diet of positive books, audios, and associating with others who do the same. In fact, I know of no other activity that can change a person’s life as quickly as changing their associations. Birds of the same plumage, in other words, come together. My good friend, the late Charlie “Tremendous” Jones, used to say, “Five years from now you will be pretty much the same as you are now, except for two things: the books you read and the people you hang out with.” I was eighteen when I first heard Charlie’s words and followed his advice. He changed everything.

Fitness experts say that 85% of fitness is found in a proper diet. I think the same principle applies to mental and spiritual diets as well. Tell me the diet of thought that a person routinely feeds into the mental and spiritual side of himself and I can predict his five-year future pretty accurately. Success is that predictable; however, it is not that easy.

Why not? Because the right habits, while easy to do, are also easy not to do. Left to themselves, most people will choose the path of least resistance, which means continuing their bad habits rather than change. However, the good news is that by teaming up with others in a 90-day challenge, an individual can tap into the community to help fuel their personal change. In essence, community is the difference between good intentions and good results. Many will give up, but fewer are willing to give up on others who are counting on them.

Fortunately, it only takes three steps for one person to change everything:

1. Develop a diet suitable for the food and thoughts that enter your body and mind.

2. Make commitments to yourself and others to follow the new diet for 90 days.

3. Maintain association with others who have committed to do the same.

There is. A recipe for success in any area of ​​life. It has been said that a person changes when the pain of staying the same or the joy of changing become great enough. Eighteen years ago, I took Charlie “Tremendous” Jones in his mental fitness challenge and it made all the difference to me. I share this with readers to encourage them through the three-step process for real change. Are you ready to take the mental fitness challenge?